"When I was a little girl, my sister and I spent our days exploring our tropical hometown-climbing guava trees, "fishing" for tadpoles, and wandering freely through a world that felt both small and infinite. In our countryside town, everyone knew everyone, and there were always watchful eyes keeping us safe. Our grandmother wasn't nearby to call us home; we watched the sun's position to know when to return for lunch."
"No one warned us that always being connected might feel like always being on call. Or that we'd become emotionally saturated by nonstop chats, alerts, and micro-updates-unable to locate stillness again. Few were prepared for the misfires that happen when tone and timing are stripped away-or how texting habits can mimic narcissism through entitlement, urgency, and disregard for others' rhythms."
Childhood memories center on exploring a tropical hometown, learning rhythms from sun, seasons, and sensory cues rather than devices. Later, limited phone minutes sparked a wish for continual visual contact with family, which instant messaging and texting fulfilled. Early excitement over constant connection gave way to drawbacks: perpetual availability, emotional saturation from nonstop alerts, and miscommunications when tone and timing were lost. Texting patterns sometimes resemble entitlement and urgency. Research links ghosting to psychological distress, digital interruptions to cognitive load, and unclear norms to burnout. A personal charter was established to protect presence.
Read at Psychology Today
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